Duterte blamed for ‘paper, pencil’ PH educ: ‘Worst DepEd sec ever’ – Tinio

Vice President Sara Duterte (Screengrab from SMNI channel video)

MANILA, Philippines — ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio has labeled Vice President Sara Duterte as the country’s worst education secretary, saying that the country’s second-highest official is also to blame as to why the country’s state of education is still at a “paper and pencil” level.

Tinio in a statement criticized Duterte for claiming that the Philippines is being left behind by other countries with regards to the education sector, saying that the vice president cannot complain about this when she failed to deliver when she headed the Department of Education (DepEd).

According to Tinio, DepEd under Duterte — from June 2022 to June 2024 — failed to provide students textbooks, as a Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department (CPBRD) report stated that the agency’s disbursement rates for its textbook program was just 17 percent.

“Vice President Duterte has the audacity to criticize the education system when she herself is the worst DepEd secretary ever,” Tinio said. “VP Duterte even failed to deliver even a tiny fraction of what was expected of her during her tenure as Education Secretary. Those who didn’t do their jobs have no right to complain.”

“How can she complain about our students lacking access to modern technology when she couldn’t even ensure they had basic textbooks and learning materials? How can she say that we lack technology when she was not able to give the basic needs of students?” he asked.

Tinio said that Duterte’s preference of having confidential funds over helping the country address the education crisis only confirms his description.

“She paid more attention to the confidential funds of DepEd instead of addressing the learning crisis. You are definitely the worst DepEd secretary ever,” he claimed.

During a program in Kuwait, Duterte said that regarding education, she has observed that while other countries have been modernizing their systems, the Philippines has been stuck at a paper and pencil status.

Duterte said that students from other countries have already been doing robotics and coding while the Philippines cannot catch up.

“What I have observed from our country, we take time to ride the wave of change. If you can see other countries, they are already modernized, but we are still stuck with paper and pencil,” Duterte said.

“Right? Other countries, their children are already studying robotics, coding, right? Three years old, four years old, they can already read,” she claimed.

However, Tinio mentioned a CPBRD report on the proposed 2026 national budget or the National Expenditures Program (NEP), which stated that while DepEd has a high average budget utilization rate of 89.2 percent since 2020, there are areas where the department lagged behind.

According to CPBRD, DepEd registered low obligation rates (OR) — or portions of an agency’s budget that has been set aside for a specific project — for certain programs since 2022, like the computerization program (23 percent to 50 percent) and feeding programs (65 to 81 percent).

A bigger concern though, CPBRD said, is the “inability of government agencies to convert committed or obligated spending into actual production or delivery of public goods and services.”

For example, DepEd’s disbursement rates or the rate of payments made by the government to a contractor regarding its textbook program was at a meager 11 percent in 2023, and 17 percent in 2024.

READ: DepEd used only 11% of 2023 textbook funds – House research arm 

“Under her watch, school-based feeding programs achieved only 48% implementation while billions of pesos allocated for education remained unutilized. How can a child, who is hungry and lacks books, learn robotics and coding?” Tinio wondered.

“She speaks of high school students who cannot read, but conveniently ignores that this learning crisis worsened under her leadership. The UNICEF statistics she cites are an indictment of her own performance, not just the educational system,” he added.

This is not the first time that DepEd has been called out for low budget utilization. During the budget deliberations in 2024, for the then-proposed 2025 national budget, lawmakers called out DepEd for its failure to deliver laptops in 2023 — resulting in a low utilization of its budget.

DepEd is currently headed by Education Secretary Sonny Angara, but questions from the House concerned Duterte’s time at the department.

READ: Solons blast low budget use, non-delivery of laptops of DepEd under Sara 

At one of the hearings by the House of Representatives’ committee on appropriations in the 19th Congress, Batangas 2nd District Rep. Gerville Lusistro asked department officials if a Commission on Audit (COA) report about low budget utilization was correct, particularly about the DepEd Computerization Program (DCP).

READ: DepEd budget expose billions in unspent funds 

In response, Director Ferdinand Pitagan confirmed that only P2.1 billion out of P11.3 billion funds for computers, laptops and smart television sets — items crucial for e-learning — were spent. /apl